Kingmaker- Army Creation Costs

[jabberwoky]

This question may have been asked somewhere before, but if it has, I can't find it. In the Kingmaker adventure path, how much does it cost to marshal (create) an army?

In any strategy game, units usually have two costs: the amount of resources it takes to purchase (create) them, and the amount of resources to sustain them.

I already understand the consumption cost for sustaining an army (BP cost per week = 1/2 of unit's CR), and I realize that armies take time to be created (1 week per level of NPC class the army possesses, 2 weeks per level of PC class the army possesses, 1 week per 2 resources the army possesses). However, the rules do not state the cost of creating the army.

For example, to raise a medium army of level 3 warriors (CR 1), with no special resources, it will take three weeks to raise the unit and cost 1 BP per week (4 BP per month) to sustain them.

Thus my question: are these troops created for free, or do they pay their consumption cost while they are being trained?

[Orthos]

If I remember correctly, Kingmaker simply gets rid of the create/purchase cost for the army and sticks strictly to the sustenance and upkeep costs. Also as soon as you start paying for their consumption, they are ready to be used - any In-character "training time" would have happened prior to beginning those payments, I'd imagine, and you start paying for them when you're ready to field them.

Likewise it does the opposite for the kingdom building system - purchase costs for developments are all that is paid, there are no upkeep costs.

[Turin the Mad]

The lack of a raising cost as well as an utter lack of some form of "manpower" limit is rather dumb. Otherwise whomever has the most BPs wins. Granted, this is largely true, but if the only limit is money/BP, then the bad guys either crush the PCs in a week or two, or are crushed in a week or two. Not much excitement in a war with such a build up...

[Orthos]

It's fine by me, but I frankly don't want too much focus on the military aspects, I want the heroes to be heroes and the army just to be there to provide some level of battlefield advantage and allow the PCs to go be heroic without getting overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of enemy forces.

It's an extremely abstracted system, and not very accurate to realism, but it does what it needs to do without making it too complex, I think.

[jabberwoky]

So a medium army of level 5 wizards (CR 4) takes ten weeks to train, consumes 2 BP a week but costs nothing to create?

While I do not doubt your answer, doesn't this open up a possible game-breaker where players raise high level armies for nothing, pay them nothing (letting them decay into nothingness), and then raise more armies for nothing to replace the ones lost?

[Orthos]

I don't have my books on me at the moment so I might be getting something wrong - if the training time is listed in the books, then I presume I was wrong on the not paying for that bit, I didn't remember if it was in there or not.

[jabberwoky]

According to "Book of the River Nations" (3rd party supplement that details the kingdom building and mass combat rules), there is no cost associated with creating an army, simply sustaining one. However, the scenario I'm detailing falls under the "Morale" section of mass combat on pg. 20

"You must pay the army’s consumption value at the start of each week it is active. Each week you fail to pay an army’s consumption, reduce its morale by 2 points. If this penalty causes an army’s morale to drop to –5 or lower, the army disbands. Each army that disbands in this fashion causes the kingdom’s Unrest to increase by +1."

If creating an army has no cost, then players can create high-level armies for free (warriors probably because they take only 1 week per level). After the first army is created, the players begin creating another army.

The players then command their army, but do not pay them, making the army morale go down quickly. When the army morale finally busts, the kingdom gets an unrest point, which can be dealt with by building a house (or any number of things that can reduce unrest).

By this point, the next army has been built and the cycle begins over again.

It may not be as game-breaking as I think, but it seems scummy even for the River Kingdoms.

[Orthos]

Ah thanks.

In that case I'd say yes, you could do that. And by the rules it would be legal. But if I had players do that in one of my games, I'd have them get a reputation for letting their armies languish after a short time, failing to pay their salaries and see to their feeding and resource upkeep, and increase their unrest more than a single measly point.

It wouldn't happen the first time - mistakes and miscommunication happen, and while the soldiers and their families would be disgruntled it wouldn't have a major effect at first - but after three or four repetitions it'd become known as a habit and I could imagine the PCs starting to have trouble getting people to volunteer for their armies.

[DMRaven]

In other words, you could theoretically do that...but as a GM, you shouldn't allow that and as a player..is your character that much of a terrible person?

Any Gm will likely have repercussions other than just a single unrest point if their players do that over and over.

[Philip Knowsley]

I'd like to throw in that it's likely that a significant proportion of
the next army, & the next, & the next etc - are dudes from the last army.
(As there is only ever a certain proportion of the populace of military
age etc)

These people are not going to be willing to enrol again & again, without
ever being paid. They'd either be demanding money up front, or the PCs
would have an ever diminishing 'pool' of resource to recruit from...
Either that - or they'd have to hire Mercenaries at exhorbitant rates, &
pay say half up front etc...

As an aside - I'm not going to be letting my players recruit (to use your
example) 'armies' of Wizards etc...especially not big ones.
I just don't see that as feasible or believable - where are these hundreds
of magic users coming from?
If you think about it - an army of wizards (even 50) casting fireball,
would completely obliterate much larger armies really quickly - BAMMM.

[pennywit]

Philip Knowsley wrote:

As an aside - I'm not going to be letting my players recruit (to use your

example) 'armies' of Wizards etc...especially not big ones.
I just don't see that as feasible or believable - where are these hundreds
of magic users coming from?
If you think about it - an army of wizards (even 50) casting fireball,
would completely obliterate much larger armies really quickly - BAMMM.

I think it would be kind of interesting to let PCs call on in-kingdom allies for this kind of thing.

For example: Let's say that Amalgamated Wizards Inc. negotiated with the PCs to set up a branch office in their capital city. When the furriners threaten to invade, perhaps the PCs could then turn to Amalgamated Wizards and ask for help defending the realm? In that case, I could see Amalgamated furnishing an "army" of, say, fifteen or twenty first-level wizards.

Incidentally, where is the rule about training times for the armies?

[Gargs454]

Keeping in mind that I have not started reading Part 5 yet (almost done with part 4), one thing to keep in mind about the tactic of constantly building and letting armies disband is the travel time to get to the battlefield. I'm assuming an army has to be formed in a city controlled by the PCs (seems wrong to be able to build it on the front). Then you have to factor in travel time to get to the front, keeping in mind that armies generally move relatively slowly.

Obviously, I do not know exactly how the battles are laid out in Book 5, but that would seem to be a relatively easy way to limit this sort of behavior (along with everything else mentioned above). I also don't think it would be unreasonable to knock the kingdom a Loyalty point or two if the PCs persist in this sort of behavior. Then, if Pitax comes knocking on the kingdom's doorstep, perhaps the PCs find that their "army" says "screw it, at least Irovetti seems to pay his troops."

[Andostre]

Another solution for the GM is to realize and declare that this tactic is just finding a loophole in the game mechanics and to simply not allow it.

[JohnB]

I have been working on the principle that the per hex consumption costs go towards policing - ie a Watch for in the towns and a regular patrol for countryside. I then made much of the city watch and Marshals (the Road and wilderness patrol) as Warrior L3 - and these could be called up as a core army.

I have a fairly complex spreadsheet that calculates how many are warriors and how many are auxiliary / support classes - because of this the values change as the nation grows ....

After that I have defined a number of different troop types and said the characters can recruit them as part of the permanent army. Fortunately my guys are fairly content with traditional military types in the army - so there are no wizardly troops around. I suspect they understand there will only be low level wizards/sorcerers available anyway - and that to be effective they will have to be armed with wands ....

We have set up and monthly costs available for all of the troop types described so far. If my guys want serious magic using troops - it will cost them <Evil Grin> however, if they have any sense, I can see them stockpiling a few wands of Fireball / Lightning Bolt to equip casters with :)

We just started Blood for Blood and the players have decided they need to start developing a more sophisticated army :) In the next few months they will have permanent light cavalry, heavy infantry and fast infantry units ready for rapid deployment - which will then be supported by by the Light Foot (of the Watch and Patrol) although that will take a while to form up and be ready for deployment.

Beyond that they will have to look to their allies or pay for mercenary forces.